Doctor diplomacy: Cuban doctors should be able to go where they want. U.S. foreign policy shouldn't push them there.

Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle

Published 6:30 am, Saturday, February 24, 2007

It's a symptom of Cuba's claustrophobia — both political and economical — that thousands of its health workers leapt at the chance to work in Venezuela's most frightening slums.

These professionals saw little choice. For decades, President Fidel Castro has dispatched physicians to poorer countries as a form of diplomacy. If the political pressure to go weren't enough, the need to earn more than $15 monthly in Cuba often sufficed.

In Venezuela, however, Cuba's "doctor diplomacy" looks more like horse-trading than ever. As a swap for about 93,000 barrels of oil daily, Castro sent more than 15,000 doctors, therapists and physical trainers to Venezuela's slums.

For Castro, it's a way to keep the lights on. For Chavez, it's a wildly popular way to provide round-the-clock health care to a population that until recently received none. Without question, the doctor trade serves both leaders' political needs beautifully.

But it's also been a historic benefit for Venezuela's poor. As with so many of Chavez' social programs, it has two profound effects. It makes life more livable for Venezuela's most neglected citizens — who are also its majority. And it gives them a sense of dignity and worth that few pre-Chavez leaders saw fit to grant.

About 360 Cuban doctors, dentists and physical therapists sent to Venezuela have applied, according to a Chronicle story by John Otis. Roughly 160 of the doctors have been accepted, while other petitioners — who had to leave Venezuela illegally to apply — are still waiting for their visas.

If they're rejected, they have 30 days to leave Colombia, where most fled in order to make their petitions. Since they can't return to Cuba, the rejected applicants essentially are stateless.

It's easy to see why so many are taking that risk. Doctors who were part of the Cuban brigade to Venezuela report pride at making such a difference in poor Venezuelans' lives. But they hate being used as pawns, worked to exhaustion seven days a week, and living in neighborhoods so dangerous that Venezuelan doctors refuse to set foot there. Cuban doctors have been attacked, even killed in these areas.

Above all, once they're away from Cuba they begin to imagine the possibilities of being free altogether. They can almost taste what it is like to live in a country where they're not followed by government operatives and can make their own professional and personal decisions.

This desire isn't exclusive to Cuba's medical professionals. All Cubans deserve to have it fulfilled. What is distinctive about the asylum petitioners is the very visible good they're doing for the needy and the appreciation their service inspires throughout the region.

For Chavez and Castro both, doctor diplomacy is hugely flattering propaganda. Conversely, our attempts to lure those doctors away reinforces the callous, materialistic American stereotype that Chavez and Castro so prize. The U.S. strategy looks all the more selfish because not all of the hopeful doctors will ever reach their dream. The others, having abandoned Venezuela, are marooned as illegal immigrants in Colombia.

Cuba's doctors, like all Cubans, should have the right to go where they want. They shouldn't have to work like farm-hands to pay off Castro's debts. Nevertheless, the United States shouldn't actively urge them to defect.

It's bad diplomacy. It can't guarantee the doctors' asylum, but it guarantees that observers throughout the Americas will conclude our idea of diplomacy means depriving the poor.